“Playing football is very simple, but playing simple football is the hardest thing there is” Johan Cruyff 1947 - 2016

Thursday, November 22, 2012

SS Lazio

Lazio 0 Tottenham Hotspur 0 - UEFA Europa League, Group Stage

Laziois one of the 20 administrative regions of Italy, situated in the central/southern peninsular section of the country. With about 5.7 million residents and a GDP of more than 170 billion euros, Lazio is the third most populated and the second richest region of Italy. It includes Rome, the capital and largest city of Italy. The Italian word Lazio descends from the Latin word Latium. Rome's history spans more than two and a half thousand years, since its founding in 753 BC, with the union of rural villages. It was the capital city of the Roman Kingdom, the Roman Republic and the Roman Empire, which was the dominant power in Western Europe and the lands bordering the Mediterranean for over seven hundred years from the 1st century BC until the 7th century AD and the city is regarded as one of the birthplaces of western civilization.

Vatican

Società Podistica Lazio was founded in January 1900 in the Prati district of Rome.Lazio officially gave birth to its football section in 1910, joined league competition in 1912 as soon as the Italian Football Federation began organizing championships. Lazio's colours of white and sky blue were inspired by the national emblem of Greece, Lazio's traditional club badge and symbol is the eagle, which was chosen by founding member Luigi Bigiarelli. It is an acknowledgment to the emblem of the ellenic Zeus (the god of sky and thunder in Greek mythology) commonly known as the Aquila.

A mid afternoon flight from Gatwick enabled us to reach the centre of Rome around 7pm local time. After checking in to our hotel, we set out to explore some recommended ale establishments. We were able to walk to Open Baladin. This bar offers a tremendous selection of draught ales, many of which are brewed locally. There are 38 beer taps stretching the full length of the bar. The beer menu is changed on a daily basis.

For research purposes we sampled Reale (6.4%), Reale Extra (6.4%), Stelle E Strisce (3.9%) and Saison (6.9%). All beers are priced at 5 Euros, which compares favourably in this relatively expensive city. A further selection of craft ale was available at two other bars across the River Tibre. At Bir & Fud we sampled Stray Dog another pleasant ale.

On the morning of the match we decided to walk out to the Olympic Stadium. To do so from the centre involved seeing many historic monuments and buildings. This Pieman can fully appreciate that Rome wasn’t built in a day. St Peter’s Square and the Vatican were on our itinerary but only as passing traffic as we opted not to go down the tourist route and keep our cash! From there it is one straight road out to the stadium.

We decided to stay in the vicinity of the ground rather than head back into town and after taking a few photographs, had a leisurely afternoon on both sides of the river. A potato and cheese pizza was enjoyed later in the afternoon along with a couple of refreshing beers at a Sicilian restaurant.

The Olympic Stadium affords a decent view from all areas including the section allocated to visitors (often not the case). SS Lazio and Tottenham Hotspur shared their second 0-0 draw in the group stage of this season’s competition and it appears that Spurs are limping their way towards qualification for the next round. After the match having been locked in the ground for in excess of an hour, the sizeable Spurs following was bussed back to the city centre. A long day was concluded with a few cold beers.